1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to ultrasonic transducers and in particular to a new and useful method using an electromagnetic acoustic transducer for measuring the load on a bolt.
2. Description of the Related Art
A desired preload on a bolt is usually achieved during assembly of a structure by applying a specified torque to the bolt. It has been demonstrated that 90% of the torque applied to the bolt during assembly is used to overcome frictional forces. Small fluctuations in these frictional forces for a given fixed applied torque result in large fluctuations in the preload to the bolt. In a study of bolt preload vs. applied torque for bolts used in the construction of the Space Shuttle Orbiter, a variation in bolt preload of more than a factor of two was reported for a given applied torque. Bolts having improper preloads can lead to catastrophic failure of critical components in a wide range of applications.
Accordingly, ultrasonic methods using transducers have been developed in an effort to provide improved bolt load measurement. For example, when it was discovered that bolts used in reactor vessel internals in nuclear power plants were failing due to improper preload, an ultrasonic method was developed for setting the preload using conventional ultrasonic transducers. This method was subsequently used in the replacement of these critical bolts in the nuclear power generation facilities.
According to this method, the bolt preload is set by a precise measurement of the ultrasonic time of flight over the length of the bolt before and after tightening. While this method provides much improved bolt preload measurements compared to torque measurements, significant errors are introduced when removing and reapplying a transducer to the head of the bolt.
Using conventional ultrasonic transducers, sound waves are transmitted and received from the bolt via a coupling fluid. Because the velocity of sound in the couplant is many times slower than that of the steel, which is used in the bolt, small variations in the couplant path length can cause large variations in the transit time of the ultrasonic signal. The uncertainty introduced by the couplant path has limited most conventional ultrasonic bolt load measurements to measuring the time of arrival difference between successive echoes which assumes that the couplant path transit time is identical for each echo. There would be several advantages for only using the first echo for ultrasonic bolt preload measurements. Primarily, the first echo is generally the largest, and less affected by lack of parallelism and flatness as compared to later echoes. For example, if the end of the bolt surface is at a small angle, .theta., with respect to the head of the bolt surface, the first echo arrives at the head of the bolt at an angle of 2.theta. while the second echo arrives at an angle of 6.theta.. The main drawback to these methods is that the all important application of couplant and transducer to the head of the bolt makes the automation of conventional ultrasonic bolt preload measurements a difficult task.